18 asaNa Magazine | April 2017
Gandhi also pointed out the need to
validate the practices of Ayurveda,
it took a long time for independent
India to establish organized and
formal mechanisms for systematic
research in Ayurveda. Even today,
much is still unprocessed in terms
of the quality and direction of the
research initiatives in the field of
Ayurveda.
Today’s insti-tutional research
environments for Ayurveda are
broadly of three kinds.
The first constitutes postgraduate
and doctoral programs in Ayurveda
educational institutes. Here
Ayurveda students learn the first
lessons of research. The compilation
of research theses deposited in the
Ayurveda schools have revealed a
large number of titles ranging from
literary to experimental and clinical
research. Much of this research
seems to be flawed in methodology
and quality, and barely a handful isever published or scrutinized by peers
in the field. The apex for research is
the central council for Research in
Ayurvedic sciences (ccRAs)9 run by
the Government of india, with various
units spread out in the length and
breadth of the country, constituting
the second environment for research
in the government sector. The council
has many publications to its credit,
conducts research in specialized
areas, and also funds research done
at other organizations through
grants offered under an extramural
scheme. The council is, however,
criticized for not generating outputs
that could actually have an impact on
the global scientific community at
large. The third category of research
institutions are in the private
sector, undertakings that are mostly
attached to the pharmaceutical
industry and engaging in research
related to quality control and
standardization of commercially
manufactured Ayurvedic medicines.Many such research units are
recognized by the Government
of India as siRos (scientific and
industrial Research organizations).
An example is the Dabur Research
Foundation. In a limited way, modern
scientific institutions provide a
fourth environment for research on
Ayurveda.
What is absent is systematic
research on the fundamentals of
Ayurveda, especially with a focus
on the epistemological premises
of Ayurveda. Modern positivist
scientific research on Ayurveda
was for a long time more or less
centered on Ethnobotany and
ethno pharmacology. Ayurvedic
pharmacopoeias were seen as a rich
source of information that could
provide leads for the development
of new drugs with the help of
modern drug discovery protocols.
ethnobotanical surveys listed
medicinal plants used by indigenous